Northrop Grumman's Mississippi-based production facility will be adding RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned air vehicle fuselage subassemblies to their manufacturing line.
The metallic sections of the fuselage will be built at the plant, and some of the smaller composite part installations will be completed at the plant as well.
The first Miss.-built fuselage is scheduled to ship to the primary Global Hawk manufacturing center in California in early 2007 for final assembly and testing. At full-production rate, the plant will be able to support the build of three Global Hawk fuselages at one time. The Global Hawk system is an unmanned aerial vehicle that flies at altitudes up to 60,000 feet and can survey geographic regions with accuracy. After mission parameters are programmed into Global Hawk, it can take off, fly its mission and land autonomously. To date, deployed Global Hawks have flown more than 6,000 combat hours in more than 260 missions in support of the war on terrorism.
